by Steven James
I borrowed Cliff’s cell, and when Tessa didn’t pick up, I left a voicemail telling her to have fun at the movie and that I’d just grab supper later and see her when she got home. I explained that my cell was broken, and left Cheyenne’s number and told her to “just call Detective Warren if you need to get in touch with me.”
She didn’t know that Detective Warren was a woman.
Then Cliff and I climbed aboard the chopper, and a few moments later we were soaring above the darkening mountains, flying east toward Denver, where the moon was already beginning to rise.
Tessa was emotionally fried.
After filing through the memory box all afternoon with Dora and realizing how much of her mom’s life she didn’t know anything about, she’d decided she needed some time to chill before heading out again for the evening.
So after Dora left to take care of a few things at home, she’d started going at the cube again, and finally managed to solve it once, but she still wasn’t even close to doing it with her eyes closed.
She’d been working on it a few minutes ago when the phone started ringing, totally distracting her.
But she’d kept her eyes closed. Tried to concentrate.
Generic ringtone. It kept ringing.
Annoying, annoying, annoying.
Finally it stopped, but by then it was too late. She’d completely lost track of where the colors were. Frustrated, she opened her eyes and went to see if whoever had called had left a message.
And found a voicemail from Patrick.
On the vm he explained that he was twenty-five minutes out and to have a good time at the movie and not to worry about him because he would just eat supper later and that he loved her and to call some detective named Warren if there was a problem.
And when she heard his voice, she remembered their last, less-than- cordial conversation.
OK, so hanging up on him might not have been the best thing to do, especially on a day he was obviously stressed about the trial and the pot of basil—oh, that was just way too disturbing—and breaking up with Agent Jiang. Ending the call like that had probably not helped her case for convincing him to give her the diary.
Hmm. So, OK.
He would grab supper later, huh? So that meant he hadn’t eaten yet.
And come to think of it, except for the chips and salsa she’d had earlier with Dora, she hadn’t eaten either.
And that gave her an idea. Maybe, just maybe, if she stopped acting like a whiny little brat, nagging him to give her the diary, he might change his mind about giving it to her. If she showed him that she really could be mature and responsible . . .
Dinner.
Yes.
There weren’t too many things that both she and Patrick liked to eat, but spaghetti with meatless sauce was one of them. Perfect.
But, according to his voicemail, she had less than twenty-five minutes to get it ready.
She called Dora and cancelled for the evening, pulled a bag of spaghetti noodles off the shelf, and filled a pot with water. Then she stuck it on the stove and started to prepare a salad while she waited for the water to boil.
58
I smelled the spaghetti sauce as I stepped through the front door.
“Tessa?” I set my computer bag next to the couch.
She appeared in the kitchen doorway holding a ladle dripping with marinara sauce and wearing the barbeque apron Ralph’s wife Brineesha had given me on Father’s Day last year that read “King of the Coals.”
“Welcome home,” she said. “Supper’s on the table.”
“What are you doing?”
“Cooking.”
“Cooking?”
“Yeah,” she said. “C’mon in.”
“You’re cooking?”
“Uh-huh. Do you want a glass of wine or something with your meal?”
I joined her in the kitchen and saw that the table was set for two. Our finest plates. One wine glass, one can of root beer. “Tessa, what’s going on?”
She blinked. “I made supper.”
“You hate cooking.”
“I’m branching out.” She held up two wine bottles. “Red or white?”
I gazed around the kitchen, tried to take everything in. The salad. The simmering sauce. The bowl of noodles. “I thought you and Dora were going out for supper and then seeing a movie?”
“We cancelled.” She waved the ladle toward the stove, sending drops of red sauce splattering across the tiling. “I kept the sauce simmering to keep it warm.”
I had no idea what to say.
“This is great and everything, but I have dinner plans already.”
“What do you mean?”
“I promised someone I’d meet them for dinner.”
“Oh.” She lowered the ladle. Set it down. “OK.” Slowly, she turned toward the stove and then shut off the burner that was warming the sauce.
“No, listen. I’m impressed, though, that you made dinner. I mean, it looks great, really.”
Her back was to me. “No, it’s no big deal. Seriously.”
Oh boy.
“Hey, look. I’ll cancel. It’s OK. I’ll just call my friend and tell them—”
“Is it a woman?” Tessa still hadn’t turned around.
“That doesn’t . . . that doesn’t matter. All I’m saying is that I told him—her—whoever it was that I’d eat in their general vicinity.”
Tessa faced me. “Their general vicinity?”
“Yes.”
“You may not have noticed, but you keep switching the case of your personal pronouns from singular to plural, using ‘them’ and ‘their’ to refer to individuals. You wouldn’t bother doing that if you were eating out with one of the guys, so I’m guessing you’re having dinner with a woman.” She folded her arms. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“It’s a professional acquaintance.”
“A female one.”
“Well, it’s—”
“Is it a date?”
“It’s not a date.”
“What is it?”
“Dinner.”
“A dinner date.”
“No.”
She cocked her head. “You sure?”
“Yes. I’m positive. It’s not a date.”
“Good.” She pulled off the apron and draped it over the top of one of the chairs beside the table. “Then I can come too.”
“Um, maybe it is a date.”
“Too late. I’m coming. Just gimme a sec to grab my purse.”
She disappeared into the other room.
What just happened here?
“Tessa, I’ll cancel!” I called.
“Naw, it’s all right. I don’t mind eating out,” she yelled back. “We can have the spaghetti tomorrow.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about—”
“So, Detective Warren, huh?” She was shouting to me from behind her bedroom door. “Is she that cute redhead who was at the newspaper office?”
I rubbed my forehead. This can’t be happening. “I’m serious, I’ll just call her and—”
“That’s rude. Keep your word. Go on your date.”
It’s not a date!
OK, so options: (1) cancel eating in the vicinity of Cheyenne; (2) lay down the law with Tessa, tell her you’re going out and that she needs to stay here—but that would mean leaving her alone with her thoughts of that pot of basil. Besides we’d argued earlier in the day about the diary, and it might be nice to spend time with her tonight letting her know that I wasn’t mad at her.
I headed to my bedroom. “All right, you can come,” I said to her door. “We leave in twenty minutes.”
“Sweetness.”
“I’m going to take a quick shower and get cleaned up—I was almost burned alive this afternoon.”
“Cool.”
I stopped and stared at the door. “It’s cool that I was almost burned alive?”
“That you were almost burned alive.” The door opened a crack, and her head appeared
. “If you had been, it would have totally sucked.”
Oh. Well in that case.
She ducked back inside.
I showered, changed clothes, and when I returned to the kitchen I found that Tessa had put the food away. Then we left to pick up Cheyenne.
59
I knocked on the door to Cheyenne’s condo.
On the drive over, I’d borrowed Tessa’s cell and called Cheyenne to tell her about the slight change of plans, but she hadn’t answered. I’d left two voicemails, but she hadn’t returned either of them.
She opened the door. “Hey.”
I hardly recognized her. She wore a stunning black dress that accentuated all the right parts of her figure in all the right ways. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her wear makeup before, but maybe she thought this was a special occasion. She looked gorgeous.
“Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know cowgirls dressed like that.”
“I told you before, I’m hard to pigeonhole. How are those arms of yours?”
“Excuse me?”
“The burns.”
“Oh. Yes. Good,” I said. “Hey, um, did you get my message?” “Message?”
“Voicemail. I called you about—well, it doesn’t matter. I was just trying to tell you that my plans had changed a little.” I stepped aside and gestured toward the car. Tessa rolled down the backseat window and waved two fingers at us. “We have company.”
“It’s Tessa.”
I tried to read her tone of voice, but I couldn’t tell what she might have been thinking.
“Listen,” I said. “It’s kind of a long story. If this isn’t going to work, it’s OK. We can just postpone—”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Cheyenne stepped onto the porch and swung the door shut behind her. Started for the car. “Like you told Reggie, it’s not a date.”
And the night was off to a brilliant start.
On the way to the restaurant, Tessa just happened to mention that she was a vegetarian and just happened to ask if the place we were eating at would be serving any recently slaughtered calves or other inhumanely treated, brutally murdered animals because if they were, it might—she was sorry—but it might totally make her sick.
“We’re letting Detective Warren choose the restaurant,” I told Tessa, remembering that Cheyenne had told me she wanted to go to a steak place near Union Station. “So wherever she wants to go, we go. And I don’t think vegetarian is on the menu.”
60
I parked in front of Sahib’s Vegan Cuisine and sighed, but I managed not to say anything as we climbed out of the car.
After we were seated and had given our drink and appetizer orders to the server, Tessa gazed around admiringly. “This place rocks. I’ve never been here before.”
“Best Indian restaurant in Denver,” Cheyenne said.
“Thanks for, you know, choosing . . .”
“You’re welcome.”
Tessa leaned toward Cheyenne. “Patrick’s been to India four times.”
Cheyenne gave me an approving nod. “Really?”
“Just to do a little teaching and consulting in Mumbai. It wasn’t really a big deal—”
“Sure it was,” Tessa interrupted. “He helped catch five people who were kidnapping girls and selling them into the sex trade.”
Cheyenne looked at me solemnly. “That is something to be proud of.” I sensed a depth of emotion in her words I’d never heard her express before. “I mean that.”
“Thank you.”
Then the drinks and naan arrived and we ordered our food. I don’t remember the Indian names for everything, but the names didn’t really matter. Everything was pretty much just vegetables and rice. Not steak. Not even close.
After the server left, I spent a few minutes helping Tessa and Cheyenne get to know each other, then Tessa said, “Detective Warren, did you know geographic profiling was first developed in India?”
I stared at my stepdaughter quizzically.
What is she doing?
“No, I didn’t,” Cheyenne said.
I didn’t want to talk business tonight, especially knowing how derisive Tessa could be about my work. “I’m sure Detective Warren isn’t interested in the history—”
“Actually, I am. Go on, Tessa.”
How did I know she was going to say that.
“Well,” Tessa said. “For nearly two thousand years the rural villages of northern India have been plagued by gangs of bandits who sneak into the towns at night and attack, rob, kidnap, and murder people, and then escape under the cover of darkness back to their own villages or to their hideouts in the jungle. Isn’t that right, Patrick?”
“Yes. They’re called—”
“Dacoits,” said Tessa. “So, to solve the crimes—and I’m not exactly sure what year they did this, you’d have to ask Patrick—the Indian authorities finally decided to stop looking for the three things detectives in North America usually base their entire investigations on—motive, means, and opportunity. First of all, the Indians didn’t care what motivated the crimes—whether it was anger or greed or tradition, or whatever, because it was probably all of the above. And second, they knew that most people in the region had the ability to attack and rob others, so focusing on the means wouldn’t have done any good. And finally, as far as opportunity, well, the crimes were always committed during the new moon when it was darkest, so that didn’t tell them a whole lot either.”
The food arrived and I was glad, if nothing more than to interrupt Tessa’s lecture.
“One thing before we dig in,” Cheyenne said. “If we want to be culturally sensitive, we need to eat with our fingers.” She demonstrated by swiping her thumb and the first three fingers of her right hand along the edge of her plate, scooping up some rice and vegetables, then lifting the food to her mouth.
I knew all of this from my trips to India, but I’d never taken the time to teach my stepdaughter Indian table etiquette.
“Cool,” Tessa said. She began to eat with her fingers. Out of instinct, she used her left hand.
Cheyenne smiled. “But always use your right hand.”
A slightly offended look. “What about left-handed people?”
“Well,” I said. “Indians use their left hands for other . . . chores.” I kept my description purposely vague, hoping Tessa would be able to fill in what I left unsaid.
“Chores?”
Cheyenne leaned forward and said softly, “Most rural villages don’t have adequate sewer systems, so the people don’t use toilet paper.”
Stunning dinner conversation, this was.
“What do they . . . ?”
“Water. They wash.”
Tessa stared at her plate. “Well, that’s informative.” I sensed that she was about to ask a follow-up question, but she held back and instead wiped her fingers on a napkin.
All three of us ate for a few minutes, then Cheyenne swallowed some of her vegetable curry and asked Tessa, who was now eating with her right hand, “So what did they look for?”
“Who?”
“The Indian authorities.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” Tessa punctuated by stabbing a finger into the air. “Timing and location.”
“Just like Patrick,” said Cheyenne admiringly.
“Not exactly—” I began.
“Yes,” Tessa said. “Just like Patrick.”
What has gotten into her?
“They studied how far a person could travel on foot at night, and then reduced the search area to include only those villages within that radius.”
She alternated between taking bites of her dinner and expounding on her answer. “Then they evaluated the most likely travel routes, studied land use patterns, and compared those to the proximity of the crimes and reduced the suspect pool even more. Finally, they considered the culture and traditions of the region.”
“Culture and traditions?” Cheyenne asked.
“Yes. They knew that the men in the gangs wouldn’t attack members of t
heir own caste, so that eliminated even more suspects. At that point they started to look for physical evidence, eyewitness identification, confessions, etc. . . . But they started by looking at timing and location.”
“Wow, I’m really impressed. Where did you learn all that?”
Tessa pointed her gooey, rice-covered fingers at me. “Patrick’s books. They’re very engaging and informative. Well-researched too.”
OK, this was just ridiculous.
I was about to explain that any investigator could have figured out the same approach by just using logic and rational deduction, but Tessa shoved her chair back from the table. “Well. I think I need to use the little girls’ room.” She paused, then said, “Um, they do have—”
“Yes,” Cheyenne said. “They do here.”
“Perf.”
Tessa wove between the tables on her way to the restroom, and I just shook my head. “I have no idea what’s going on with her tonight. I’m really sorry.”
“For what?”
“She’s not usually like this. Most of the time she’s a lot less . . . um, forthcoming.”
“She’s proud of you, that’s all.” Cheyenne took a drink, then set down her lassi. “I like her. She’s got spunk.”
“Yes,” I said. “Spunk.”
We ate for a few minutes, then I set down my fork. “Cheyenne, let me ask you something.”
“Yes?” She took a small bite of her vegetables.
“Back at the barn when you shot the chain . . .” I took a moment to collect my thoughts so it wouldn’t sound like I was questioning her judgment. She chewed her food. Swallowed. Waited for me to go on.
“Why didn’t you shoot it when you were beside me? You know, before the horse started running. It seems like that would have been a much easier shot than hitting a three-centimeter-wide chain from a galloping horse.”
“You’re right. It would have been easier.”
“So then, why?”
She took one last bite of her meal, then slid her plate toward the middle of the table and dipped her fingers into the small metal bowl of water that the server had provided for patrons to clean their fingers. “I would have needed a few extra seconds to aim, but the fire was spreading so fast I didn’t want to chance it. I wasn’t confident the horse would make it if I waited.”